Countercyclical dispersion of firm outcomes (micro dispersion) is commonly used as a proxy for micro uncertainty. In this paper, we characterize conditions under which micro dispersion and micro uncertainty co-move positively in the context of a large Cournot economy with dispersed information...

This study shows that the recent trajectory of a firm's profits predicts future profitability and stock returns. The predictive information contained in the trend of profitability is not subsumed by the level of profitability, earnings momentum, or other well-known determinants of stock returns....

Many studies report that the size effect in the cross-section of stock returns disappeared after the early 1980s. This paper shows that its disappearance can be attributed to negative shocks to the profitability of small firms and positive shocks to big firms. After adjusting for the price...

In this paper I analyze the relationship between insider trading and corporate governance characteristics. Despite, the widely held view that insider trading significantly affects stock prices; little is known about what causes such market inefficiency and whether firm characteristics matters....

This paper investigates whether rational risk or behavioral mispricing helps to explain the profitability premium in the Chinese stock market setting. We find that firms with high profitability generate substantially higher future stock returns than those with low profitability in China. This...

This paper examines the profitability of momentum strategies within the Malaysian stock market. Its also investigates relationship between stock returns and past trading volume. The study finds weak but insignificant evidence of momentum returns for Malaysian equities which is pervasive across...

We perform a large-scale empirical analysis of pairs trading, a popular relative-value arbitrage approach. We start with a cross-country study of 34 international stock markets and uncover that abnormal returns are a persistent phenomenon. We then construct a comprehensive U.S. data set to...

This study examines the dynamic response of credit spread (CS) to corporate profit growth (CP) shock. Using the bivariate VAR model to analyze quarterly data from 1952Q1 to 2012Q4, the results show that credit spread drops immediately following the positive shock to corporate profit growth, and...

Prior research shows that momentum returns are unlikely to be explained by risk-based theories. Daniel, Hirshleifer, and Subrahmanyam (1998) show that momentum effect can be explained by investors overconfidence and self-attribution bias while Barberis, Shleifer, and Vishny (1998) and Hong and...

Relying on 2.2 million articles from 45 national and local U.S. newspapers between 1989 and 2010, we find that firms particularly covered by the media exhibit ceteris paribus significantly stronger momentum. The effect depends on article tone, reverses in the long-run, is more pronounced for...